Guide 09 — read this before touching anything
Protect your wallet files before you try anything else.
Recoverable wallets are lost to specific mistakes — reinstalling, wiping, or letting a stranger “take a quick look”. These five moves take ten minutes, cost nothing, and can save everything.
By Robbert Bink · ~4 min read · Published 6 August 2026 · Last reviewed: 14 August 2026
Copy your wallet file read-only to two safe places, write down every clue you remember, and then touch nothing until you know what you are doing. Most recoverable cases become unrecoverable through panic, not through the original loss.
The five moves, in order
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1
Make read-only backup copies
Copy the wallet file (
wallet.dat,UTC--*.json,wallet.aes.json,*.wallet.aes, an Electrum wallet file with no fixed extension, or another wallet-specific backup) to a USB stick and a second device — before you try a single password. Then mark both copies read-only so no app or tool can alter them. The original stays exactly where it is. -
2
Write down everything you remember
Length, characters, words, dates, patterns, other passwords from that era. Memory decays fastest under stress — capture it now, on paper or in a password journal. This becomes your candidate list.
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3
Log the wallet type and version
App name, file extension, version if you can find it, and roughly when you installed it. Feasibility (guide 08) depends on this exact information, and it is easy to forget later.
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4
Note the wallet address and last activity
Write down the address that holds your funds and when you last saw a balance. This helps identify the case if you ever need help — an address alone is not proof of ownership.
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5
Export and check your password manager
If the password is in a manager you no longer use, find it now — guide 05 covers the full sweep. Check recent and recently-deleted items before you forget which manager it was.
The seven things never to do
- Never reinstall or “update” the wallet app — some updates migrate or overwrite wallet files.
- Never wipe or reformat the device, even if the wallet “seems broken”. Deleted ≠ gone — but only while the disk is untouched, and on a modern SSD with TRIM deleted data can become unrecoverable quickly even without obvious overwriting. If the only copy may have been deleted from an SSD, stop using the device immediately, avoid rebooting or installing recovery tools on it, and image the drive or get specialist help before experimenting.
- Never upload the wallet file to any website, form, or “online checker” that asks for it — an online cracker cannot work, so the only thing a checker can do is take the file.
- Never enter your seed phrase into a website, chat, email, support form, unknown app, or untrusted tool. For software-wallet recovery, only use the official wallet restore flow you intentionally installed. For hardware-wallet seeds, enter the words only on the hardware device itself or in the manufacturer’s approved on-device recovery flow.
- Never install remote-access software (AnyDesk, TeamViewer, ScreenConnect) for a “recovery agent”.
- Never pay an upfront fee, “deposit”, “gas” or “tax” to unlock anything.
- Never hammer the real wallet with guesses — some wallets wipe after repeated failures. Test on a copy.
Why “just try it” is dangerous
You are not fighting the password — you are fighting entropy. Every reckless action (reinstall, wipe, failed-guess lockout) converts a recoverable situation into an unrecoverable one. The files are the evidence; treat them like crime-scene evidence, because to you, that is exactly what they are. And if the file is corrupted, the device is dead or the seed is gone, no password testing helps — see the seven cases that aren’t a password problem.
Your wallet file is on an old or dead computer
This is one of the most common real cases — and usually not a lost cause. The wallet file lives on an old machine, and the password problem only starts once the file is safely in your hands. So: stop using that machine now. Do not reinstall the system, do not run “repair” tools, and do not let anyone “take a quick look” — every one of those can overwrite the very file you need.
If the machine still powers on, copy the wallet file to a working computer and one backup before you touch anything else — the file-location guide shows where it hides. If the disk is truly dead and you cannot get the file off, that is no longer a password problem: it is data recovery, which this site does not cover. Until then, the file is the only thing standing between you and a recoverable case.
Is the drive itself encrypted (BitLocker, FileVault, a VeraCrypt container)? That is a second password problem, not a dead end — the encrypted-drive section on the encrypted-file guide covers it. Same rule: copy the disk or image first, then work on the copy.
How your files should always be handled
Your wallet file never needs to be uploaded anywhere public — for any reason. Real recovery work happens offline, on a copy, with you keeping control. If someone asks for your file “urgently”, without a clear agreement about what happens to your data, that alone is a reason to pause. Once your copies are safe, the complete DIY route takes over — from finding the file to rebuilding clues and running the tool: recover a wallet password yourself.
Keep going — it’s all free
Not sure what you lost or what’s possible?
Take the quick diagnosis for a first verdict — it stops early when the answer is already clear — then work the search checklist. Everything here is informative, runs offline, and is free to use.